The legend of the 70s running shoes:Osaga KT-26 Retro jogging shoes
by klein Jack on Mar 12, 2023
Talking about osaga KT-26 Retro jogging shoes, the pioneer of C-class running shoes in the late 1970s, we started with John salley, a former NBA superstar.
Speaking of the "bad boys' army" and the Bulls' grudges, John salley is an unavoidable figure. First of all, the piston led by salley is a kind of bandit level interior line, which has always undertaken the task of the last "iron gate" of the Jordan rule. No matter Jordan or Pippen, they are the real players who break through the inside.Speaking of the "bad boys' army" and the Bulls' grudges, John salley is an unavoidable figure. First of all, the piston led by salley is a kind of bandit level interior line, which has always undertaken the task of the last "iron gate" of the Jordan rule. No matter Jordan or Pippen, they are the real players who break through the inside. From the video data of the game at that time, no matter what happened after the referee's whistle, whether it was the result of the two teams' players' spraying "greetings" to the other team's family, pulling off the fight, or the situation completely out of control, the executors of the "last strike" before the whistle were often the relatively fixed people. And John salley is definitely the best.
As we all know, salley has been involved in movies many times since his playing days. The most famous is that in 1995 and 2003, he guest starred in the first two parts of the police bandit film Jedi Warmen starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Interestingly, the original English name of the film was bad boys.
The big man, nicknamed "spider", also endorsed a little-known quasi signature shoe, osaga KT-26. Like Nike, osaga was also a brand that rose in Oregon in the 1970s, but now it has disappeared. Before that, its product focus was running shoes.
Osaga's name comes from Osage Indians in Oklahoma and uses the label "for the human race"
About three months after the blue ribbon movement or Nike as we know it today. Bill combs, a family shoe retailer in Eugene, Oregon, founded osaga company. 
Although osaga company has sold now, this sneaker store is still there, known as "burchs fine shoes".
The original idea of the company was that the shoes would be world class running and athletic shoes but not be sold in sporting goods stores and would be made available only to family shoe stores. 
As you might guess, this took away the opportunity to have athletes as spokespersons. Alberto Salazar was the only ‘major’ runner to have worn the shoes and that only happed for a very short time. Nearly all of the shoes had names beginning with the letter “C” (as research found that those words were the easiest to remember), names like Capra, Cortina, Columbia and the Cochise (which was meant to compete with the Adidas Country and was green and white) and the logo colors were Green and Yellow (not becauase of Oregon but because marketing research said those were the most pleasing colors).
Osaga was the first company to put emphasis on matching warm-ups, bags, hats, shirts, etc to the shoe colors.
Runner’s World magazine Rate The Osaga KT-26 as the 2nd running shoe in the world at 1979, although the Osaga KT-26 shoes could then be found in some Athletes Foot stores, there was no base of well known runners sponsored by OSAGA to really maximize the potential for expansion.
Oddly enough, the best shoe OSAGA Ever produced was called the OSAGA 2000 which,at the time, was the lightest weight tennis shoe ever produced. It used lightweight materials that are common place today but were evolutionary at that time.
Bill combs was running out of money and his writing was hanging on the wall. The company went bankrupt, and the technology of Osaga KT-26 cantilever sole was sold to Avia with a small amount of money.
The story is over, but not completely.
A senior manager of unclehector, an Austrian shoemaking brand, once owned a pair of osaga kt-26 when he was young. In his memory, osaga kt-26 is a pair of jogging shoes with excellent support and comfort. Once, he accidentally found a relatively well preserved second-hand osaga kt-26 in a retro shoe store in Japan, and spent nearly $800 to take him home. In order to pay tribute to this pair of classic jogging shoes that once crossed the sky like a meteor, he began to organize to take this pair of shoes as the prototype and remake them with modern technology to commemorate his high school life.The unclehector kt-26 was born.
The upper is made of suede, Oxford mesh and ice silk, and the sole is made of Japanese foaming rubber technology.
This pair of sneakers ensures sufficient foot support and comfort. At the same time, the addition of Oxford mesh also makes this pair of shoes have enough air permeability.
Currently, unclehector sells this KT-26 shoe in its own online shop. Those interested in KT-26 shoe can purchase it directly from unclehector's official website.
-------------
-------
